


The Doors We Open

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Windrose Chronicles - Barbara Hambly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. - Flora Whittemore</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doors We Open

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Isabeau

 

 

I.

Antryg woke with a trembling start, the sound of his master's voice in his ears and a fevered prayer on his lips.

He weakly lifted his head and peered out at the dim winter light outside his cold, rocky shelter. It was little more than a slab of granite jutting from the loamy hillside than a proper cave. When the change in weather made itself known, plucking at his bones like some demented musician, he packed his makeshift camp by the creek, found the shallow cave, and dug in. He used his hands and whatever crude tools he could fashion from stone; he couldn't dare anything more.

By the time he made enough room to fold himself inside snugly, bony knees tight against thin chest, the storm hit. First came a gentle wind, followed by a spattering of cold rain that froze upon contact, which transitioned into crystal-bright flurries. As the snow accumulated, the breeze became a gale that buffeted the hills of the Sykerst. It seemed that it had not let up in the scant hours he slept. Still it moaned over the face of the craggy hillside he inhabited, a sound that followed him into dreams and translated into memories of pain.

He recalled the subject of his dreams and found his eyes drawn to the scars on his arm, the lines pink and fresh despite their age. They were the result of dark magic, and would never truly fade. He would carry them with him for the rest of his life.

 _There's no point in dwelling on it now,_ he told himself reasonably. _You're awake. He can't touch you when you're awake._

He gathered his blankets around him snugly and instead contemplated the emptiness in his belly and the heaviness in his chest. He'd need to fill the former and alleviate the latter before it became unmanageable without outside help. The desire to touch the ley lines in the earth beneath him, to wield that power to heal himself, was all but tangible. It was a feeling akin to lust, to the sickness growing in his lungs.

It'd been so long.

 _Too long,_ whispered the voice of his master.

 _Too long,_ he agreed grimly. _And yet not long enough._

_But I won't think about that now._

No, he couldn't think about that now. He had enough on his plate. Staying warm and dry, for starters. That was easy enough now that he found appropriate shelter. He reached beside him, hand finding the smooth distention of the wineskin borrowed from the storehouse he plundered the week before; still plenty of water. Finding food and medicine were secondary. And besides, he was so tired. If only he could sleep. _Really_ sleep.

If only Suraklin would let him.

Despite this gnawing fear, the wind became a lullaby.

His eyes slid shut.

II.

Two days before the Emperor's Sasenna discovered their stronghold, Antryg fell in love for the first time with a rebel girl. Two days after that she was put to death.

He read of her demise in the cards, he knew it was coming. That didn't make it any easier.

Her name was Eladyn, and she was the daughter of a Mellidane guild merchant. Only the year before she'd left the security of her station and her father's home to fight the children's war. Her skin was fine, her hair long and dark and wild as her eyes. Her voice was low and sweet, and she moved with a feline grace that fascinated him even as it repelled him. She reminded him very much of a certain high-born wizard, one who never had a kind word to say of him, even before the uprising began, before he became involved.

_Dog wizard._

He and the merchant's daughter shared a single night together, speaking to each other with their hands and their bodies rather than their lips. He whispered of power against her skin, told her of its beauty and its dangers. He breathed in her scent and composed sonnets upon her breasts. She laughed from the joy of it all, collecting all his secrets as they spun from his fingertips and holding them tight.

Later, when they lay sated and drowsy from their lovemaking, she asked him about his childhood. He evaded her with questions about her own. He laughed at the descriptions of her siblings and their attempts to get their governess sacked. In the lull between sentences they would catch bits of conversation from the rooms below. The words Emperor and Sasenna and Council were repeated again and again. They had been spotted. They had been found out. It only was a matter of time.

Antryg could have told them this, if it would have changed anything.

The merchant's daughter's fingers were slender and cool against the hollow of his throat, her hair   
tickling his nose. She took a breath and let it out slowly. "Antryg?"

He smoothed his hand over her hair. "Hmm?"

"Shall we die, do you think?"

"Inevitably." He smiled and sighed and tightened his arms around her. "But not today."

III.

That morning the valley was humming with heat and the frantic activity of its citizens; little lives, filled to bursting with their own importance, going about their little tasks. Shopping for groceries, dropping their offspring off at school, fighting, making love, and kissing an acquaintance on the street -- all those little things that make up a life.

In the middle of it all, at a small cafe cradling a mug coffee in his elegantly crooked fingers, sat a retired dog wizard. His wide gray eyes soaked in the preoccupation and press of humanity from his courtyard table. No matter how isolated he felt at times, severed from his powers, his home, and everyone he'd ever known, it was nothing a good hour's worth of people watching couldn't cure. It was Antryg's favorite pastime.

"Ready?"

Antryg glanced up, his face breaking into a grin as he recognized the speaker. "My dear Joanna," he said, rising to his feet. "I have never been more ready in my life." He emptied his mug and placed it gently on the table.

Joanna's Mustang was parked at the curb a block away, the gleam of its paint job clouded with age and the unforgiving Californian sun. He couldn't help but notice the slight tremor in Joanna's hands as she reached for the passenger's side door handle.

"You're nervous," he pointed out.

She met his eyes as she pulled open the door, giving him a wry smile. "Wouldn't you be?"

"I do have some experience with driving, you know," he said mildly as he bent to adjust the position of the driver's seat. "And I've been watching you, of course. I believe I have the mechanics down."

She plopped down into the passenger's seat, her expression a little stricken. "Horses," she corrected. She seemed to be struggling to keep her voice under control. "You've driven _horses._ It's not quite the same."

"Of course," he replied, unruffled. He adjusted the driver's seat and eased into place, pulling the door shut. He looked at her with raised brows until she reluctantly handed over the knot of kitschy baubles and macram that housed her dizzying collection of keys. He picked the one marked with a Ford emblem out of the pile and searched for the ignition until she pointed it out to him with a trembling finger.

"Thank you, Joanna," he murmured humbly and slid the key home.

A simple half-twist and the Mustang roared to life, engine thrumming beneath Antryg's hands as they rest upon the steering wheel, and feet as they searched out the pedals. The ancient radio, permanently tuned to a Latin AM talk radio station, added a tinny counterpoint to the engine's song. It was inanimate, yet its tired power somehow spoke to him in the same unbridled way magic had when first he touched it. He turned to Joanna and offered her a smile.

"Now then, shall we hit the San Bernadino?"

Joanna's mouth dropped open. It closed and opened once again.

Antryg laughed and put the Mustang into gear.

 


End file.
